Housing for Seniors Faces Another Vote

Beverly Hills, the poster city for luxurious living, boasts some of the finest residential properties in the world--except if you’re a senior citizen no longer able to live on your own, in which case the city has nothing for you.

For 12 years, a developer has been trying to convince Beverly Hills officials to approve a 67-unit group care home, where senior citizens could share meals and services while still maintaining separate apartments.

He has lost every step of the way. Tonight, the City Council will hold a final vote on his proposal.

Last winter, the Beverly Hills Planning Commission denied developer Ron Weiner’s project in part because of neighbors’ objections that the scale of the project was inconsistent with their quiet, residential neighborhood of smaller family homes and walk-up apartment buildings.

With nearly 25% of its residents age 65 or older--about double the state average--Beverly Hills is being forced to decide an issue that an aging American population will pose in communities everywhere: Where should residents go when they get old?

“These are not easy questions,” said Patt Sklar, 48, a neighbor who strongly opposes the project. “It’s like politics and religion. Senior housing--it brings out the worst in people.”

Weiner said that in the early 1980s, the problem of an aging family friend who lived in Beverly Hills forced him to examine the state of senior citizens housing. The friend, in good health and not ready for a nursing home, nonetheless was ready to give up solitary living, he said.

But in the woman’s own community, nothing met her needs. The only housing for senior citizens in Beverly Hills is a federally subsidized complex on Crescent Drive, in the downtown area, made up of separate apartments for low-income senior citizens.

So Weiner formulated plans for luxury apartments along Arnez Drive, with group meals, maid service, car service, laundry, entertainment, common areas and the like.

He gave a $125,000 grant to the USC Andrus Gerontology Center to study the needs of the community, his site and his project. He instructed his architect to design a beautiful facility, complete with courtyards set in from the street.

But in 1985, the city denied Weiner’s proposal, declining to give him a zoning variance.

Meanwhile, the need for so-called “assisted living” continued to grow, said USC gerontology professor Jon Pynoos, a Beverly Hills resident and an expert in housing needs for the elderly.

The number of people older than 85 is 29 times larger than it was at the turn of the century, according to an American Assn. of Retired Persons survey of U.S. census data. In California, the percentage of people older than 65 grew by more than 11% between 1990 and 1995, the report found.

“Many seniors desire to have a more supportive environment and find it difficult to stay at home,” Pynoos said.

Herm Shultz, the 75-year-old head of Concern for Tenants Rights of Beverly Hills, said one of the reasons he supports the project is because he fields so many inquiries about it.

“They want to know if there’s a waiting list,” said Shultz, a 27-year resident of Beverly Hills.

In 1993, after the site had been rezoned for condominiums, Weiner began working with the Planning Commission to revise his proposal.

Neighbors complained about increased traffic and parking; Weiner said he would put in a car service and restrict parking, since many senior citizens prefer not to drive anyway. Others worried about the noise and bother of trucked-in deliveries disrupting the street; Weiner had the project redrawn to include an underground garage loading dock, so that trucks would not invade the street.

He also promised to set aside 20% of his units for low-income senior citizens.

‘No matter what we did it was worthless,” Weiner complained. “They had their minds made up.”

In February, Weiner’s proposal was again denied by the Planning Commission.

City Manager Mark Scott said the city must find a way to serve residents as they grow older, but questioned whether Weiner’s site was the appropriate place.

“Do you trade off the need for the housing against the scale of the neighborhood and the desires of the residents to retain the feeling in their neighborhood?” Scott asked.

Tonight, Weiner is hoping that the City Council will grant his appeal and overturn the commission’s decision.

Around Arnez Drive one recent afternoon, neighbors out for a walk said they feel compelled to continue pressuring the city to kill the project.

“This is a neighborhood for families,” said 65-year-old Gayle Smith, who has lived a block away from the site for 29 years. “There are very few places in Beverly Hills where young families can afford to live.”

Dalia Pelleg, 49, a 12-year resident, added: “It’s a commercial venture in a residential area and commercial ventures don’t belong.”

USC aging expert Pynoos said he has heard these same arguments from all around the country as communities debate the issues surrounding assisted living for the elderly.

“It’s usually a lack of understanding of what these are, how they function and how they are really residential,” Pynoos said. “It could work there, and I think it would end up being a good neighbor to the residents, rather than something they would find to be objectionable.”

Arnez Drive resident Sandra McKee, who would say only that she is in her 30s, said she supports the idea.

“I think they should have something nice for elderly people,” McKee said. “We all have to get old.”